Samuel Wesley (poet)
Encyclopedia
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
and Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
, founders of the Methodist Church.
Family and early life
The father of Samuel Wesley was the Rev. John WestleyJohn Westley
-Life:John Wesly , Westley, or Wesley was born in Creekelnaught, Alabama, although some authorities claim he was born in Devon, the son of the Rev. Bartholomew Westley and Ann Colley, daughter of Sir Henry Colley of Carbery Castle, He was educated at Dorchester Grammar School and as a student of...
, rector of Winterborne Whitechurch
Winterborne Whitechurch
Winterborne Whitechurch, also Winterborne Whitchurch, is a village in central Dorset, England, situated in a winterbourne valley on the A354 road on the Dorset Downs five miles south west of Blandford Forum. The village has a population of 694 ....
, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
. His mother was the daughter of John White, rector of Trinity Church, Dorchester, the so-called "Patriarch of Dorchester".
Following some grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
education in Dorchester, Wesley was sent away from home to prepare for ministerial training under Theophilus Gale
Theophilus Gale
Theophilus Gale was an English educationalist, nonconformist and theologian of dissent.-Early life:Gale was born at Kingsteignton, Devon, the son of Bridget Gale and Theophilus Gale D. D....
. Gale's death in 1678 forestalled this plan; instead, he attended another grammar school and then studied at Dissenting academies
Dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and nonconformist seminaries run by dissenters. They formed a significant part of England’s educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries....
under Edward Veel (or Veal) in Stepney
Stepney
Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London's East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstan's church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road...
and then Charles Morton in Newington Green
Newington Green
Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...
, where Gale had lived. Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
also attended Morton's school, situated "probably on the site of the current Unitarian church
Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London is one of England's oldest Unitarian churches. It has had strong ties to political radicalism for over 300 years, and is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use...
", contemporaneously with Wesley.
Samuel resigned his place and his annual scholarship among the Dissenters and walked all the way to Oxford, where he enrolled at Exeter College as a "poor scholar." He functioned as a "servitor", which means he sustained himself financially by waiting upon wealthy students. He also published a small book of poems, entitled Maggots: or Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled in 1685. The unusual title is explained in a few lines from the first page of the work:
In his own defense the author writes Because when the foul maggot bites He ne'er can rest in quiet: Which makes him make so sad a face He'd beg your worship or your grace Unsight, unseen, to buy it |
Wesley married Susanna Wesley
Susanna Wesley
Susanna Wesley , born Susanna Annesley, was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley and Mary White, and the mother of John and Charles Wesley....
in 1688. He fathered Samuel Wesley (the Younger)
Samuel Wesley (the Younger)
Samuel Wesley the Younger was a poet and a Church of England cleric.-Birth:Wesley was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Wesley and of Susanna Annesley Wesley. He was the brother of John Wesley and Charles Wesley. He was born in Spitalfields, London in either 1690 or 1691...
, John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
and Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
. He had 19 children, nine of whom died in infancy. Three boys and seven girls survived.
In 1697 he was appointed to the living at Epworth through the benevolence of Queen Mary. He may have come to the queen's attention because of his heroic poem, "The Life of Christ" (1693) which he dedicated to her. Samuel Wesley's high-church liturgies, academic proclivities, and loyalist Tory politics were a complete mismatch for those of his illiterate parishioners. He was not warmly received, and his ministry was not widely appreciated. Wesley was soon deep in dept and much of his life would be spent trying to make financial ends meet. In 1709 his parsonage was destroyed by fire and son John was barely rescued from the flames.
Career
His poetic career began in 1685 with the publication of Maggots, a collection of juvenile verses on trivial subjects, the preface to which apologizes to the reader because the book is neither grave nor gay. The poems appear to be an attempt to prove that poetic language can create beauty out of the most revolting subject. The first poem, "On a Maggot", is composed in hudibrasHudibras
Hudibras is an English mock heroic narrative poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler.-Purpose:The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War...
tics, with a diction obviously Butlerian, and it is followed by facetious poetic dialogues and by Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
ics of the Cowleian sort but on such subjects as "On the Grunting of a Hog." In 1688 Wesley took his B.A, at Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
, following which he became a naval chaplain and, in 1690, rector of South Ormsby
South Ormsby
South Ormsby, sometimes called South Ormesby, is a village in Lincolnshire, England. With the nearby hamlet of Ketsby, it forms the civil parish of South Ormesby with Ketsby...
. In 1694 he took his MA from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
, and the following year he became rector of Epworth. During the run of the Athenian Gazette (1691–1697) he joined with Richard Sault
Richard Sault
Richard Sault was an Englishmathematician, editor and translator, one of The Athenian Society. On the strength of his Second Spira he is also now credited as a Christian Cartesian philosopher.-Life:...
and John Norris in assisting John Dunton
John Dunton
John Dunton was an English bookseller and author. In 1691, he founded an Athenian Society to publish The Athenian Mercury, the first major popular periodical and first miscellaneous periodical in England.-Early life:...
, the promoter of the undertaking. His second venture in poetry, the Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, an epic largely in heroic couplets with a prefatory discourse on heroic poetry, appeared in 1693, was reissued in 1694, and was honored with a second edition in 1697. In 1695 he dutifully came forward with Elegies, lamenting the deaths of Queen Mary II
Mary II of England
Mary II was joint Sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant, respectively, following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of...
and Archbishop Tillotson
John Tillotson
John Tillotson was an Archbishop of Canterbury .-Curate and rector:Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. He entered as a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647, graduated in 1650 and was made fellow of his college in 1651...
. An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry (1700) was followed by at least four other volumes of verse, the last of which was issued in 1717. His poetry appears to have had readers on a certain level, but it stirred up little pleasure among wits, writers, or critics. Judith Drake confessed that she was lulled to sleep by Blackmore's Prince Arthur and by Wesley's "heroics" (Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, 1696, p. 50). And he was satirized as a mare poetaster in Garth's Dispensary, in Swift's The Battle of the Books, and in the earliest issues of the Dunciad.
Controversy
For a few years in the early eighteenth century Wesley found himself in the vortex of controversy. Brought up in the dissenting tradition, he had swerved into conformity at some point during the 1680s, possibly under the influence of Tillotson, whom he greatly admired (of. Epistle to a Friend, pp. 5–6). In 1702 there appeared his Letter from a Country Divine to his friend in London concerning the education of dissenters in their private academies, apparently written about 1693. This attack upon dissenting academies was published at an unfortunate time, when the public mind was inflamed by the intolerance of overzealous churchmen. Wesley was furiously answered; he replied in A Defence of a Letter (1704), and again in A Reply to Mr. Palmer's Vindication (1707). It is scarcely to Wesley's credit that in this quarrel he stood shoulder to shoulder with that most hot-headed of all contemporary bigots, Henry SacheverellHenry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Early life:The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough,...
. His prominence in the controversy earned him the ironic compliments of Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, who recalled that our "Mighty Champion of this very High-Church Cause" had once written a poem to satirize frenzied Tories (Review, II, no. 87, 22 September 1705). About a week later Defoe, having got wind of a collection being taken up, for Wesley—who in consequence of a series of misfortunes was badly in debt—intimated that High-Church pamphleteering had turned out very profitably for both Lesley and Wesley (2 October 1705). But in such snarling and bickering Wesley was out of his element, and, he seems to have avoided future quarrels.
His literary criticism is small in bulk. But though it is neither brilliant nor well written (Wesley apparently composed at a break-neck clip), it is not without interest. Pope observed in 1730 that he was a "learned" man (letter to Swift, in Works, ed. Elwin-Courthope, VII, 184). The observation was correct, but it should be added that Wesley matured at the end of an age famous for its great learning, an age whose most distinguished poet was so much the scholar that he appeared more the pedant than the gentleman to critics of the succeeding era; Wesley was not singular for erudition among his seventeenth-century contemporaries.
"Essay on Heroic Poetry"
The Essay on Heroic Poetry, serving as Preface to The Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour, reveals something of its author's erudition. Among the critics, he was familiar with AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, Longinus
Longinus (literature)
Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise, On the Sublime , a work which focuses on the effect of good writing. Longinus, sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus because his real name is unknown, was a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary critic who may have lived in the...
, Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...
, Heinsius
Nikolaes Heinsius the Elder
Nikolaes Heinsius the Elder , Dutch classical scholar and poet, son of Daniel Heinsius, was born at Leiden.His boyish Latin poem Breda expugnata was printed in 1637, and attracted much attention. In 1642 he began his wanderings with a visit to England in search of manuscripts of the classics; but...
, Bochart
Samuel Bochart
Samuel Bochart was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet...
, Balzac
Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac
Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac was a French author, best known for his epistolary essays, which were widely circulated and read in his day. He was one of the founding members of Académie française.-Biography:...
, Rapin
René Rapin
René Rapin was a French Jesuit and writer.He was born at Tours and entered the Society of Jesus in 1639. He taught rhetoric, and wrote extensively both in verse and prose.-Works:...
, Le Bossu
René Le Bossu
René Le Bossu was a French critic.He was born in Paris, studied at Nanterre, and in 1649 became one of the regular canons of Sainte-Geneviève. He wrote Parallèle des principes de la physique d'Aristote et de celle de René Descartes , and Traité du poème épique...
, and Boileau
Boileau
Boileau can refer to:Persons:*Boileau-Narcejac, pen name of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud, also known as Thomas Narcejac, French writers of police stories*Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, 17th century French writer...
. But this barely hints at the extent of his learning. In the notes on the poem itself the author displays an interest in classical scholarship, Biblical commentary, ecclesiastical history, scientific inquiry, linguistics and philology, British antiquities, and research into the history, customs, architecture, and geography of the Holy Land; he shows, an intimate acquaintance with Grotius, Henry Hammond
Henry Hammond
Henry Hammond was an English churchman.-Early life:He was born at Chertsey in Surrey on 18 August 1605, the youngest son of John Hammond, physician. He was educated at Eton College, and from age 13 at Magdalen College, Oxford, becoming demy or scholar in 1619. On 11 December 1622 he graduated B.A....
, Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow from 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist...
, Spanheim
Friedrich Spanheim
Friedrich Spanheim the elder was a Calvinistic theology professor at the University of Leiden.-Life:He entered in 1614 the University of Heidelberg where he studied philology and philosophy, and in 1619 removed to Geneva to study theology...
, Sherlock, Lightfoot, and Gregory, with Philo
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
, Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
, Fuller
Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his Worthies of England, published after his death...
, Walker, Camden
William Camden
William Camden was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms. He wrote the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.- Early years :Camden was born in London...
, and Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...
; and he shows an equal readiness to draw upon Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth was an English philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists.-Life:Born at Aller, Somerset, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, gaining his MA and becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639. In 1645, he became master of Clare Hall and professor of Hebrew...
's True Intellectual System and Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
's new theories concerning the nature of light. In view of such a breadth of knowledge it is somewhat surprising to find him quoting as extensively as he does in the "Essay" from Le Bossu and Rapin, and apparently leaning heavily upon them.
The "Essay" was composed at a time when the prestige of Rymer and neo-Aristotelianism in England was already declining, and though Wesley expressed some admiration for Rapin and Le Bossu, he is by no means docile under their authority. Whatever the weight of authority, he says, "I see no cause why Poetry should not be brought to the Test [of reason], as well as Divinity...." As to the sacred example of Homer, who based his great epic on mythology, Wesley remarks, "But this [mythology] being now antiquated, I cannot think we are oblig'd superstitiously to follow his Example, any more than to make Horses speak, as he does that of Achilles." To the question of the formidable Boileau, "What Pleasure can it be to hear the howlings of repining Lucifer?" our critic responds flippantly,"I think 'tis easier to answer than to find out what shew of Reason he had for asking it, or why Lucifer mayn't howl as pleasantly as either Cerberus, or Knoeladus." Without hesitation or apology he takes issue with Rapin's conception of Decorum in the epic. But Wesley is empiricist as well as rationalist, and the judgment of authority can be upset by appeal to the court of experience. To Balzac's suggestion that, to avoid difficult and local proper names in poetry, generalized terms be used, such as Ill-luck for the Fates and the Foul Fiend for Lucifer, our critic replies with jaunty irony, "... and whether this wou'd not sound extremely Heroical, I leave any Man to judge", and thus he dismisses the matter. Similarly, when Rapin objects to Tasso's mingling of lyric softness in the majesty of the epic, Wesley points out sharply that no man of taste will part with the fine scenes of tender love in Tasso, Dryden, Ovid, Ariosto, and Spenser "for the sake of a fancied Regularity." He had set out to defend the Biblical epic, the Christian epic, and the propriety of Christian machines in epic, and no rules or authority could deter him. As good an example as any of his independence of mind can be seen In a note on Bk. I, apropos of the poet's use of obsolete words (Life of Our Blessed Lord, 1697, p. 27): It may be in vicious imitation of Milton and Spenser, he says in effect, but I have a fondness for old words, they please my ear, and that is all the reason I can give for employing them.
Wesley's resistance to a strict application of authority and the rules grew partly out of the rationalistic and empirical temper of Englishmen in his age, but it also sprang from his learning. From various sources he drew the theory that Greek and Latin were but corrupted forms of ancient Phoenician, and that the degeneracy of Greek and Latin in turn had produced all, or most, of the present European tongues (ibid., p. 354). In addition, he believed that the Greeks had derived some of their thought from older civilizations, and specifically that Plato had received many of his notions from the Jews (ibid., p. 230)--an idea which recalls the argument that Dryden in Religio Laioi had employed against the deists, furthermore, he had, like many of his learned contemporaries, a profound respect for Hebrew culture and the sublimity of the Hebrew scriptures, going so far as to remark in the "Essay on Heroic Poetry" that "most, even of [the heathen poets'] beat Fancies and Images, as well as Names, were borrow'd from the Antient Hebrew Poetry and Divinity." In short, however faulty his particular conclusions, he had arrived at an historical viewpoint, from which it was no longer possible to regard the classical standards—much less the standards of French critics—as having the holy sanction of Nature herself.
Literary tastes
Some light is shed on the literary tastes of his period by Epistle to a friend concerning poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (1697), which with a few exceptions were in accord with the prevailing current. The Life of Our Blessed Lord shows strongly the influence of Cowley's Davideis. Wesley's great admiration persisted after the tide had turned away from Cowley; and his liking for the "divine Herbert" and for Crashaw represented the tastes of sober and unfashionable readers. Although he professed unbounded admiration for Homer as the greatest genius in nature, in practise he seemed more inclined to follow the lead of Cowley, Virgil, and Vida. Although there was much in Ariosto that he enjoyed, he preferred Tasso; the irregularities in both, however, he felt bound to deplore. To Spenser's Faerie Queene he allowed extraordinary merit. If the plan of it was noble, he thought, and the mark of a comprehensive genius, yet the action of the poem seemed confused. Nevertheless, like Prior later, Wesley was inclined to suspend judgment on this point because the poem had been left incomplete. To Spenser's "thoughts" he paid the highest tribute, and to his "Expressions flowing natural and easie, with such a prodigious Poetical Copia as never any other must expect to enjoy." Like most of the Augustans Wesley did not care greatly for Paradise RegainedParadise Regained
Paradise Regained is a poem by the English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes...
, but he partly atoned by his praise for Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
, which was an "original" and therefore "above the common Rules." Though defective in its action, it was resplendent with sublime thoughts perhaps superior to any in Virgil or Homer, and full of incomparable and exquisitely moving passages. In spite of his belief that Milton's blank verse was a mistake, making for looseness and incorrectness, he borrowed lines and images from it, and in Bk. IV of The Life of Our Blessed Lord he incorporated a whole passage of Milton's blank verse in the midst of his heroic couplets.
Wesley's attitude toward Dryden deserves a moment's pause. In the "Essay on Heroic Poetry" he observed that a speech of Satan's in Paradise Lost is nearly equalled in Dryden's State of Innocence. Later in the same essay he credited a passage in Dryden's King Arthur with showing an improvement upon Tasso. There is no doubt as to his vast respect for the greatest living poet, but his remarks do not indicate that he ranked Dryden with Virgil, Tasso, or Milton; for he recognized as well as we that the power to embellish and to imitate successfully does not constitute the highest excellence in poetry. In the Epistle to a Friend he affirmed his admiration for Dryden's matchless style, his harmony, his lofty strains, his youthful fire, and even his wit—in the main, qualities of style and expression. But by 1700 Wesley had absorbed enough of the new puritanism that was rising in England to qualify his praise; now he deprecated the looseness and indecency of the poetry, and called upon the poet to repent. One other point calls for comment. Wesley's scheme for Christian machinery in the epic, as described in the "Essay on Heroic Poetry", is remarkably similar to Dryden's. Dryden's had appeared in the essay on satire prefaced to his translation of Juvenal
Juvenal
The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
, published late in October 1692; Wesley's scheme appeared soon after June 1693.
The Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry is neither startling nor contemptible; it has, in fact, much more to say than the rhymed treatises on verse by Roscommon and Buckinghamshire. Its remarks on Genius are fresh, though tantalizing in their brevity, and it defends the Moderns with both neatness and energy. Much of its advice is cautious and commonplace—but such was the tradition of the poetical treatise on verse. Appearing within two years of Collier's first attack upon the stage, it reinforces some of that worthy's contentions, but we are not aware of its having had much effect.
Source
This material was originally from the introduction of Augustan Reprint SocietyAugustan Reprint Society
The Augustan Reprint Society was founded in 1946. The Society reprinted many rare works, drawn largely from the collections of the University of California's library. Its status as of 2009 is uncertain....
's edition of Epistle to a friend concerning poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697), volume 5 in the Augustan Reprint series, part of series 2, Essay on Poetry: No. 2, first printed in 1947. It was written by Edward Niles Hooker. It was published in the US without a copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
notice, which at the time meant it fell into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.
See also
- Charles WesleyCharles WesleyCharles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
- John WesleyJohn WesleyJohn Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...